Your Swedish Roots Online

Category Archives: Tax Registers

A few months ago, we published a blog about the types of tax registers that are available in ArkivDigital. Go to previous blog. As stated in the blog post, three copies of the tax registers were created. Unfortunately, the preservation of these different copies is uneven. Often, one will find that only one or two of the copies have been preserved; if one is really unlucky, none of them.

Earlier, we have photographed the two copies which are preserved at the regional archives from the oldest times to 1820. We have also been photographing the third copy which is preserved at the National Archives in Stockholm (Riksarkivet iStockholm). We are currently doing complementary photographing which means that we are only photographing volumes where no corresponding copies exist in the regional archives.

Below is a status listing the tax registers from the National Archives we have photographed or are in the progress of photographing. The focus has been to photograph the counties with the biggest gaps in the regional archives.

First page of ”Qwarntulls och Mantals Längd oppå Byy Sochn Pro Anno 1653” or the Tax Register for By parish for the year 1654. Page is from the National Archive’s tax register copy for the tax registers for 1653 or Kopparberg county. Link.

Old tax registers or population registers (mantalslängder) may not sound like a particular exciting research source. And many who look at tax registers are not easily impressed. Mostly just names, columns and numbers.

However, as we go back in time, the information in the household records becomes less detailed and the household records often do not exist in the late 1700’s or in prior times. It is at this time that the tax registers become a valuable source for the family researcher. Particularly useful are the tax or population registers (mantalslängderna), which begin around 1630.

The tax registers or population registers were created annually and are, like the household records, organized topographically by parish and village or farm. A single volume does not say so much. But when one follows the registers through a succession of years, one can follow developments and changes on a farm or village. This data can then be combined with the birth, marriage and death records, and often one can see the changes within a family nearly as clearly as if the household records had been preserved. The information in the tax registers or population registers varies over time and in different areas of the country.

At the time around the change of the century between the 1700’s and 1800’s, there is often good information in the columns in the tax register. In the above tax register which refers to Nätra parish in the year, 1803, you will columns for taxes referring to pocket watches (fickur) (gold or silver) and the use of silk (sidentyg).

In ArkivDigital, you can find tax registers or population registers for all of Sweden from the beginning up until the 1800’s (often 1820). Several copies of tax registers or population registers (mantalslängder) were created and they are preserved in different archives. Thus, they can sometimes be difficult to find.

The first series are found with the local authorities. You can search for these in the following archives in the English interface in ArkivDigital:

District registrar (Swedish – häradsskrivare)

Alternative archives

Kronokamrer

Kronokassör

Mantalskontor

Taxation Authority (Swedish – Uppbördsverk)

Kommunalborgmästare

Crown bailiff (Swedish – kronofogde)

The second series is at the regional level or county level in the regional archives or search for the country archives in the English interface.

The third series are at the national level in Stockholm. In the English interface, search in the chamber archive. Or you can enter mantalslängder 1642–1820 or länsräkenskaper in the search box. For Stockholm city, you can find population registers and other tax register in the Överståthållarämbetets archive.

Concerning the third series of the tax registers or population registers those named Mantalslängder 1642-1820, we are prioritizing photographing volumes for the counties and years that are missing in the other series. This is an ongoing project and more volumes will be added online. For the first two series, the photographing is now complete.

ArkivDigital is working currently to make it simpler to find all these tax or population registers.

The population registers (mantalslängderna) or tax registers are important sources for genealogical research. These records existed as early as the 1640’s long before household records or for that matter many other church records for most parishes. In cases where the church books have been destroyed by fire or other causes, these population registers are a treasure for the researcher.

Today, we would like to provide a summary of our English tutorials and blogs providing tips on researching in the population registers (mantalslängderna) or tax registers.

During the spring, ArkivDigital began photographing documents preserved at the Royal Palace archives (Slottsarkivet) which is located at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. We have partly photographed palace books that are included in the archive for Ståthållarämbetet på Stockholms slott or the Office of the Governor of the Royal Palace at Stockholm as well as some estate inventories from the Nedre Borgrätten (Lower Court of Justice) and Övre Borgrätten (Upper Court of Justice) archives.

The palace books that we have photographed reference the years 1645-1655.These volumes include, among other items, tax registers for the city of Stockholm.

Tax register for Stockholm city for the year 1645. The record is included in the palace general ledger for that year. Link.

The Courts of Justice in the palace were responsible for handling all matters of justice related to the court staff. In addition, the court employees submitted their estate inventories to the palace court of justice and not to the city court. The estate inventories for the court employees who were aristocrats were submitted to the Upper Court of Justice while the other court employees’ estate inventories were submitted to the Lower Court of Justice.

We will continue to photograph at the Royal Palace during the late summer and fall and will primarily focus on photographing the country books containing tax registers from Svartsjö county. Svartsjö county existed for about 20 years in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s and covers the area that today represents the municipality of Ekerö.

Over 3,000 newly photographed volumes have been added to our online digital archive since the beginning of the year. We want to take this opportunity to summarize the most important additions. To find out what is available in our online library, click here.

Modern church books – For most counties, we have had added the church books whose confidentiality or protection from the privacy laws expired at the end of last year. These include birth, death and congregation books up to 1946 with the exception of books that may contain retroactively introduced sensitive data. (This is especially common in birth books.) In addition, we have added moving in/out books and marriage records up to the year 1980.

SCB extracts for 1946 – Because of the privacy laws, we seldom are able to publish all the birth, marriage and death books up to 1946. If the original book is not available, the SCB extracts are a good replacement. In the beginning of March, we added the SCB extracts for 1946. Earlier we published the extracts for the years 1925 through 1945. You will find the SCB extracts in the archive: Statistiska centralbyrån (SCB) – Avdelningen för befolkningsstatistik 1:a avdelningen. The easiest way to search for the SCB extracts is to select archive search and enter “SCB” in the search box.

Estate inventories - Currently, we are photographing estate inventories for the period 1931 to 1960. The progress varies between counties. If you want to know what is available for a particular county, go to this page https://www.arkivdigital.net/volume. On the right side of the page, select the county that you interested in and there you will find a summary of what is available for that county.

National Archives tax register copies – We have earlier (with some exceptions) photographed the two copies of the tax registers which are preserved at the regional archives, namely the häradsskrivarnas(städernas) or the district (city) copies and the county office examples from the earliest times up to and including the year 1820.

Unfortunately, it is not unusual that there are missing tax register copies both for the district/city and county. Fortunately, there was a third copy stored at the National Archives which is in a collection named, Mantalslängder 1642-1820 or Tax Registers 1642-1820. We are currently photographing volumes from this collection to cover gaps in our records. To date, we have primarily published the tax register for Älvsborg county. The tax registers for Älvsborg county have been a blank spot on the map for us because the county office copies are completely missing prior to 1835 because they were destroyed by the Vänersborg city fire in 1834. Only sporadic copies of the district/city tax registers were preserved.

Seamen houses – Documents from many of the seamen houses have been available in ArkivDigital for a long period. But the Norrland seamen houses have been completely missing but this is beginning to change. We have begun to add documents for the seaman house in Haparanda and more documents for other seaman houses in Norrland will be added in the future.

All of us at ArkivDigital wish you a lovely Easter with lots of good food and the pleasant company of loved ones. Happy Easter!

The population registers (mantalslängderna) or tax registers are one of the key sources for Swedish genealogy. These records existed as early as the 1640’s long before household records or for that matter many other church records for most parishes. In cases where the church books have been destroyed by fire or other causes, these population registers are a treasure for the researcher.

ArkivDigital earlier (with some exceptions) photographed the two copies of population records preserved at the regional archives, namely the district/city (häradsskrivarnas/städernas) and the county (landskontorens) office copies, from the earliest times to 1820.

Unfortunately, there are cases where no population registers were saved at the district/city or county office. Fortunately, a third copy of the population register was created. This copy is stored at the Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet) and is included in an archive named, Mantalslängder 1642-1820. We are happy to announce that recently we have begun to photograph records from this collection.

From the Swedish National Archives collection, so far we have only completed publishing the oldest registers for the counties of Gotland and Älvsborg but more will be added in the future. However, we wish to clarify that we will not be photographing all the volumes in the archive, Mantalslängder 1642-1820. We will focus on photographing volumes that contain population registers that are missing from the district or county office archives.The first pagein the Älvsborg’s county population register (mantalslängd) for the year 1642 (Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet) copy). Link.

Unfortunately, the Swedish National Archives collection of population registers is not complete either. For some parishes, all three copies of the population registers were not saved and are not available for certain years. For the period 1719-1765, the archive Riksgäldarkiven Riksens ständers kontor Kammarkontoret, can function as a replacement.

In the county ledger books (länshuvudböckerna), various types of records are included among which are financial accounts but also a variety of personal records. As a replacement for the population records, the salary (lön) and fee payment (betalningsavgiften) records can be helpful. We also want to clarify that we will not be photographing all the books but only the ones that can be used as a replacement for the missing population registers.Beginning of 1737 year’s record over salary and payment fees (lön- och betalningsavgifter) for Tåstarps parish in Norra Åsbo härad (Kristianstad county). Link.

If you wish to access these new registers, subscribe to our All-in-one subscription, which gives you access to all the historical documents in ArkivDigital along with these new registers. In order to access the registers, you will need to install our new software, ArkivDigital 2.0 beta. You can download the software from our website: http://www.arkivdigital.net/products/adonline/installation

Population of Sweden 1880-1920

The Population of Sweden 1880-1920 is a digital searchable name register of all of the Swedish household records and congregation books from around 1880 to 1920. In other words: A fantastic tool for solving those genealogical mysteries in your family tree!

Whatever happened to your great-grandfather’s little brother? His name appeared in an 1860’s household record, but then he vanished. Surely, he moved somewhere. But where?

This tool is the first one to employ as you pursue an answer. You can search for a person by name, birth date, or other characteristics and you will see a result list of possible candidates. Click on a good possibility and you will pull up a transcription of that person’s complete information along with a link to the original record.

You may have the answer before you can say, “There’s Great Uncle Sven!”

The 1960 Swedish Census index is a wonderful source for those seeking information about people living in Sweden during the middle of the last century. This census is drawn from the country’s tax register published in 1961 using data collected late in the previous year and includes everyone who then lived in Sweden.

The register is searchable by name and includes full name, birth date and birth parish, marital status, and information about their place of residence. Individuals are grouped by households, though the relationships among those living together are not stated. Nonetheless, it is often possible to infer additional information. If a man and woman in the same household have the same marriage date, for example, they most likely are married to each other.

Additional information in the database includes the maiden name of married women and the place of registration in the previous tax register. Usually, there is a link to the first image of the parish birth book that will contain the person’s birth record.

It is a great disappointment for a researcher to discover that many of the church books do not exist for the parish his or her ancestor came from. Sometimes there are gaps in the records or an entire series is missing. Sometimes, one knows the reason why the records no longer exist such as a fire but sometimes there is only a note saying the there are no records.

If your ancestors are from Värnamo, Voxtorp and Tånnö parishes in Småland, you will be initially disappointed because many of the church books were destroyed in a fire in 1869. A story is told that the minister’s maid was in the parsonage cooking pork over the open fireplace. Someone called out for assistance because a cow was calving. The maid ran to help and completely forgot about the pork and the open fire. While the maid was helping with the calving, the fire spread and the parsonage and the church books burned. By luck a few books and household records from 1861 were preserved as well as the birth, marriage and death books for 1825-1860 for Värnamo parish.

But just because the church books no longer exist does not mean that one cannot research further. One should look for other documents. There may be some tax registers, court records and estate inventories that are available. It may take some time and it is not always easy to research in these documents, but with a little patience one can find some additional information.

Värnamo, Voxtorp and Tånnö parishes are located in Östbo härad or district and it is sometimes said that “an accident seldom comes alone”. There was a fire at the Östbo district court in 1834. This means that there are no estate inventories, court records or other documents in that archive that can be used. Fortunately for the court records, there are extracts or duplicate records. The court was required to make extracts or copies of the original court records and submit it to the Göta Court of Appeals once a year. In ArkivDigital’s online library, these are available only for the years 1603 to 1750 for Östbo härad (some gaps do exist).

What now remains for that time period are the tax registers/population registers (mantalslängderna). These were produced each year and while they are not as detailed as the household records, one can easily follow a family on a farm year by year. The more recent one comes in time, the more information one finds in the population registers.

We hope to photograph the population registers and other documents for the parishes where the church books are missing. For some parishes we have already done this. In ArkivDigital population registers for Östbo härad are now available up to and including 1861. Actually, this is the only way one can do family research for Värnamo, Voxtorp and Tånnö parishes.

In ArkivDigital, you can find these populations registers:

1686-1820 (gaps exist) in Jönköping läns landskontor.

1758-1861 (gaps exist) in Häradsskrivaren i Östbo fögderi.

To search in the Jönköping läns landskontor archive using the English interface:

Go to ArkivDigital search.

Select advance options.

Select archive type, country office.

Select Jönköping läns landskontor.

To search in the Häradsskrivaren in Östbo fögderi archive using the English interface:

The image above is the population register for Värnamo in 1850 showing AlandsrydSkattegård. Anders Jönsson (born 1800) and his wife (hustru) born 1805 together with Johan (born 1837), Isak (born 1844), Anna (born 1833), Stina (born 1840) and farmhand (dräng) Johan (born 1832) are shown as living in the first section of the farm listing. Following is the lodger(inhyses), Jöns (born 1767) and his wife (born 1785). Seeing that Anders last name is Jönsson, it is possible that the lodger, Jöns, and his wife are his parents.

One can’t conclude that this is correct without researching more records. Maybe it’s his father, but Jöns wife is probably not the mother because she would have been only 15 when Anders was born. Maybe Jöns remarried or it may be Anders wife’s parents or even someone completely different. More research is necessary before one can resolve the mystery.

Our online library has now nearly 54 million images which equates to more than 100 million pages for your Swedish family and historical research. Many new records were added to ArkivDigital during the last month. Below is a summary of the highlights.

Estate InventoriesWe continue to focus on photographing the estate inventories (bouppteckningar) for the period from 1901 to 1940. Below is a summary of the new additions.

All estate inventories from 1901 to 1940 for Blekinge and Halland counties are now available. Photographing is in progress for Malmöhus and Kristianstad counties for the years 1931 to 1940. The estate inventories for Stockholm county (except for Stockholm city) are now available up to 1930. Only a few volumes for the period 1931 to 1940 remain to be photographed. We will begin to photograph the estate inventories for the period from 1901 to 1940 for Stockholm city.

Concerning estate inventories, we want to mention some words about Borås city court and magistrate where the records are not preserved at the regional archive but instead at the city archive in Borås. We have been busy in Borås this past winter and early spring photographing and as a result the estate inventories for Borås are now available up to 1960.

Population/tax registers and real estate booksOther materials added during the last month were the district archives (häradsskrivarnas) population/tax registers (mantalslängder) from earliest times up to 1820 for Östergotland county along with real estate books (fastighetsböcker) for Malmö city. The real estate books, which began to be introduced in 1875, can include notes well into the 1900’s and are found in the archive “Inskrivningsdomarna I Malmö”. To search for this archive, click on advanced options in the search window and select archive type: court registrar.

Air Crashes (Flyghaverier) and Defense Readiness (Beredskapsverket)“Flygstaben: Centralexpeditionen”, a series about air crashes for the period 1934-1949, has been photographed during the last month and much of the material is now available in ArkivDigital. The remaining volumes will soon be added to the online archive. You can find the archive, “Flygstaben: Centralexpeditionen” in the military archives.

The Swedish military defense readiness agency’s official military work, “Beredskapsverket” is a comprehensive series describing the military defense readiness program for the years 1937-1945. ArkivDigital has photographed about 19,000 images from this series and more will be added. You can find these documents in the “Beredskapsverket Avdelning 1” volume in the military archives.

If you want to see exactly what has added to the archive on the volume level, click here. This page is in Swedish.

The tax/population registers (mantalslängderna) are an important replacement source in cases where the parish records have been destroyed. Even in cases where the church records have not been destroyed, the household examination records only go back to the early 1800’s or late 1700’s in many parishes.

The tax/population registers exist from the middle of the 1600’s and while they are not as detailed as the household examination records; they do provide the possibility to continue to follow a family backwards.

Several copies of the tax registers were created. ArkivDigital is photographing the two copies which are preserved at the regional archives primarily the district/city registers and the county rural copies.

The original copy of the tax register exists in the district (häradsskrivarnas) archive. This is the copy that one should use since as a rule it is the one that generally contains the most information. The district office was responsible for the tax registers for the rural areas. For the cities, you can find original copies of the tax registers in the city hall and magistrates archive, crown treasurer’s archive (kronokassörens arkiv), crown accountancy (kronokamrerarens) or tax collection (uppbördsverkets) archives.

Below is an image of a 1787 tax register for Svenarum parish in Jönköpng county.

You will find a place index at the following reference: Jönköpings läns landskontor EIII:34 (1787-1788) Image 3 (AID: v400751b.b3, NAD: SE/VALA/01971) Link

The place index states that the tax register for Svenarum for 1787 begins on page 298.

Go to page 298 and you will find the beginning page for the 1787 tax register for Svenarum parish as shown above.

For most counties, the copies of the tax registers up to 1820 from the regional archives are now available on ArkivDigital. These records are found in the district registrar or country office archives.